The “woosh” of a dildo flying past your face. Tribalistic chants. Men making bets on your bodily functions.
This isn’t a cult—this is a day in the life of a modern-day WNBA player.
That last indignity on the list? It’s a sports betting strategy that’s been getting increasing play over the course of this WNBA season, which is wrapping up as the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury face off in the finals. Dozens of dedicated gamblers online are making bets on players’ potential performance based on their “predictions” (or, rather, assumptions) about their menstrual cycles. Some actually call it “blood money,” because … of course they do.
One prominent figure making and predicting these wagers, who goes by FadeMeBets online, has garnered thousands of likes and shares on Instagram for his menstrual cycle betting strategy. He claims he’s been correct on 11 out of 16 of his period-related predictions, with about 68.75 percent accuracy. “What’s kind of good, but also kind of bad, is it brings more people to watch the WNBA, but, on the downside of that, it’s usually just all gamblers,” says FadeMeBets, who declined to be named, citing privacy concerns.
This WNBA season has been a record-breaker—more fans in the stands, more eyes on the screen, more viral moments. The league announced that attendance passed a historic 2.5 million earlier this summer. Meanwhile, high-profile players like Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, and Caitlin Clark have added a boost and become household names.
The newfound interest in the league has more men watching the sport than women, and the overwhelming rise of sports gambling means some of them are betting on the games—and the players’ periods—which experts warn isn’t just pseudoscientific, but sexist, too.
“Not every woman is the same. Yes, there’s the traditional 28-day cycle, but everyone’s is different, and it varies person to person, month by month,” says Amy West, a sports medicine physician. “Someone being able to predict that? Someone who’s not very close to the menstruating person? It’s actually kind of silly.”
Methods to the Madness
FadeMeBets admits that predicting WNBA player performance based on menstrual cycle assumptions is more art than science. His typical menstrual cycle prediction videos all start with the vaguely menacing phrase: “We’ve got a victim, boys.” (By this, he says the victim is the betting line—the odds set out by sportsbooks that determine a person’s payout—not the player herself.) He then shares predictions about whether a specific player is menstruating, ovulating, or in their late luteal phase, which occurs after ovulation and before the period comes. For instance, he said this summer of Clark: “She is on the end of her late luteal phase, meaning a decrease in cardio, decrease in strength, decrease in aerobic system, she’s going to be tired more often than in a normal game.”
FadeMeBets told viewers to “bet the under” on Clark that game, projecting that she’d score lower than the number predicted by oddsmakers on sports betting apps, and, in this case, Clark did.
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